Tales from the Rickshaw Part 3

The other day Bideshi 1 and I were out grocery shopping at one of the few “supermarkets” that is comparable to an American supermarket at a local mall called Riffles Square. We loaded up on expensive convenience foods and approximation western goods for when we don’t feel like trying to make real food out of exotic (or at least unfamiliar) ingredients. We left the supermarket with a couple of sacks of groceries and hired a rickshaw to drive us home. We are new to the neighborhood and don’t really know all the variations on how to get from point A to point B, and we’re also not super competent Bangla speakers, which makes asking directions a little difficult. (I’m sure those readers who have traveled in foreign lands are familiar with the experience of asking a perfectly clear question and understanding absolutely nothing of the answer…) Usually we’re able to tell the rickshaw walla where we want to go and he will either say he can take us there or he can’t. So far, we have always ended up where we wanted to go…eventually.

We told this particular rickshaw walla to take us to West Rajabajar, Indira Road, which is where we live. He tilts his head to the side with the subtle gesture that indicates he can get us there. The journey is complicated by the fact that between Riffles Square and West Rajabajar is Mirpor Road. Mirpor Road is one of the biggest roads in Dhaka and rickshaws are typically not allowed to cross – although maybe sometimes in some places they are able to. When those times are, I doubt anyone could accurately describe. Anyway, we board the rickshaw and get under way. I glance at my watch in order to be able to pay our standard fare of 1 Taka per minute. If we take a reasonably direct route, I know it should take 15-20 minutes.

The journey is tortuous, the buildings are tall and box us in, and the sky is a uniform smog grey. After about ten minutes I don’t know what direction we’re headed, only that I have never been here before and that by this point we should be near Mirpur Road, which is nowhere to be seen. We get to a big road, Green Road, take a left, travel a ways, reach another big intersection, and stop to wait for the traffic light to change (a rare occurrence – the stopping and waiting that is). I ask the rickshaw walla where Indira Road is. He points straight across the intersection. Can rickshaws go on Indira Road, I ask. This is a somewhat stupid question, because I see rickshaws on Indira Road outside our house all the time. No, he says. The light changes and we proceed through the intersection and take a left. Where are we going, I ask. He doesn’t answer. Jen asks the question. West Rajabajar, he replies somewhat annoyed. He’s obviously thinking, “just where you told me to go dumbass.” Jen says, our house is on Indira Road. Indira Road? You want to go to Indira Road? Yes we say. House eighty-eight-by-one Indira Road, Jen says in English (meaning that our house is number 88/1 on Indira Road). He turns around.

Now we’re heading the wrong way on a divided street. Yeehaw! We get back to the big intersection and turn left (which would have been straight across from where we were previously stopped) go a little way and then break off into the narrow side streets. We take some rights, some lefts, and get good and turned around. At this point it’s pretty clear that the rickshaw walla doesn’t have the faintest idea where we are relative to house 88/1 Indira Road. He stops and asks for directions, “basha eight-by-one Indira Road kothay?” No, eighty-eight-by-one kothay, Jen corrects. The men across the street point up the road. Okay, good, we must be on the right track. We go to the next intersection. The rickshaw walla stops again to ask directions, “basha eight-by-one Indira Road kothay?” No, eighty-eight-by-one kothay, Jen corrects. The men across the street point left. We go left. This scenario repeats four or five times – not incredibly confidence inspiring. The rickshaw walla keeps telling us “no stress, no stress.” Finally Jen recognizes a sign (hurray for reading in Bangla!). We are just a few blocks from home, and getting the rest of the way there is no problem.

We get off the rickshaw in our driveway. I look at the watch. Shoot. In all the fuss I’ve forgotten what time we got on, but I think probably 30 minutes ago, maybe 40. I give him 30 Taka. He’s not happy. He wants 100 Taka. This is ridiculous. A rickshaw fare is never 100 Taka. Jen tells him so. He sticks to his guns. 100 Taka! No way, we start to walk away. He follows us into the gated garage. He and Jen are now arguing at high volume. I take the groceries upstairs figuring he’ll leave soon enough. Four floors up I can still hear them arguing. I go back down. The rickshaw walla is pleading his case to the doorman and his family. I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying, but I imagine that it goes something like these stupid foreigners hired me to bring them to West Rajabajar then changed their mind when I was half way there. They didn’t know where they were going and made me drive all over kingdom come. Now they won’t even pay me a decent fare for my trouble. Meanwhile, Jen is saying we’re foreigners, we’re new to this area, we don’t always know the shortest way to go. That’s your job. Don’t think we’ll give you 100 Taka just because you took us the long way round.

Finally Jen says, if I give you another 10 Taka will you leave? The rickshaw walla says 20. Jen pushes a ten Taka note into his hand. At this point I’m just tired of the scene we’ve created. So I take the rickshaw walla by the shoulders. He’s surprised. His eyes pop open like a deer in the headlights and he shuts up for a second. I turn him gently around, push him out the door, and close the gate. He gets on his rickshaw and rolls down the driveway, stopping at the end to talk to the man standing there. I wonder if he is asking directions or deriding the cheating, cheap-ass bideshis that live in house number 88/1 - both probably.

Inside the garage Rashida, the doorman’s wife, is asking what we paid the rickshaw walla. Too much Jen says. Where did you come from she says? Riffles Square we tell her. Should be 15 Taka she says. We gave 40, Jen says. Oooh, bideshi dam (price), she says.

Fifteen minutes later Jen is in tears. She’s replaying the events in her head. One-hundred Taka he wanted. That’s one dollar and forty-three cents. For us that is next to nothing. Why didn’t we just give it to him? She feels terrible. But at the time, money was not the issue. The fact is, a rickshaw fare is never 100 Taka. He was trying to take advantage of us. Asking for 100 Taka is an insult. That’s why Jen was mad.

In retrospect it seems so trivial, so petty. How could it matter to us when the price is so low either way? But it does matter. He was out of line. It is not his place in the world to follow a customer into the garage and ask for more money. From our perspective as Americans to perpetuate that sort of class division seems wrong and unjust, but here to allow a rickshaw walla to charge you 100 Taka, to actually pay him that much, is to display your social incompetence. Not that we retained much dignity in the end. As it turned out, I’m sure we put our social incompetence on broad display by having a shouting match with him. Sometimes it’s just hard to get it right.